Page 82 of Bride of the Sinful Laird
“Like this?” He growled. “Are ye wanting another of me wicked ways?”
She managed a tiny giggle just before his lips closed over hers, and his shaft slid inside her. Then his tongue echoed his thrusts,and her hips found a rhythm to join with him in true bliss. Slowly, wondrously their pleasure took them to a glorious place neither of them had ever been before.
After Edmund left her to seek out Tormod and Lionel to make plans based on what they’d learned of MacDonald’s double-dealing and treachery, Annora fastened the latch and returned to her chair by the fire.
She dozed, her fur cloak wrapped around her, her thoughts filled with Edmund and her love for him, longing for the time to pass and for them to wed.
It was strange to be filled with dread and at the same time to soar with hope and joy for the future. But Edmund had reassured her she was safe in that chamber. She understood the arrangements he was making with Lionel and the Elders were for the purpose of keeping her safe from the threats posed by Harris MacDonald and her father’s men.
She was lost in a blissful dream when a soft knock came at the door. Edmund had said she was not to answer the door unless it was him returning to their chamber, so she went to the door and asked softly, “Is that ye, Edmund?”
“Aye lass,” came the equally soft response, she could barely hear because of the heavy wood.
Smiling with delight she pulled open the latch.
But before she could open the door, it was roughly pushed in, catching her off balance, as two burly, masked men burst in. She opened her mouth to scream, but a hand was shoved over her mouth before she could utter a sound.
She kicked out with all her might to try and dislodge the brute who was standing over her, when another pair of arms seized her from behind. As she fought frantically, a black hood was pulled over her head, and she felt herself thrown over a shoulder as if she was no more than a sack of barley.
In a trice, something was bound around her face, muffling her cries, while a rope was tightened around her ankles.
She struggled, beating with her fists against her captor’s back. The man was huge and her feeble attempts made no more impression on him than a fluttering moth.
As the two men hastened from the room with her, she doubled her efforts to escape their clutches, kicking and scratching as best she could.
It was then she was silenced and stilled by a heavy blow to her head and the world disappeared.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Annora came to her senses slowly, still held, still hooded, aware of the men’s grunting as they made haste. She made out the sound of another voice. This one she recognized, and her blood curdled.
It was Harris MacDonald, urging the man who was carrying her.
“Be quick,” she heard him say, “the Laird Munro is waiting in the cove wi’ his birlinn. He wishes tae be underway as soon as ye make it tae the mooring.”
Oh, Dear God, me faither is already here.
Ice-water poured into her heart. She could be sailing within no time, in her father’s clutches. It was everything she’d dreaded, yet, even so, it was almost impossible to believe.
MacDonald laughed, a cold, mirthless sound. “I’ve outwitted that big oaf Edmund Sinclair. While he and his men are tryingtae find ways tae defend the castle, I’ve already taken the lass from under their noses.”
Her heart sank. Mayhap she would be delivered to the waiting Graham Munro before Edmund was even aware she’d been taken. She groaned at the thought of him arriving at their chamber, only to discover she was gone.
She gathered from the few, grunted, comments back and forth that she was in a hidden tunnel beneath the castle leading from somewhere under the bailey all the way to the shore.
How MacDonald had managed to arrange all this she could only guess. Someone must have guided him to the tunnel and helped him evade the guards.
Her head ached and her stomach roiled with nausea, the binding around her ankles was too tight, cutting her flesh, and, pressed as she was over the man’s shoulder, she could hardly breathe. Yet her pain and discomfort were nothing compared to the prospect of being, once again, in her father’s hateful presence.
She lost all sense of time. It seemed she’d been here, in the darkness, for hours. Then, all at once, she sensed light and the men came to a standstill.
The brute who was carrying her lowered her with a thump onto an uneven ground. She stumbled, her legs having lost all feeling. They could scarcely hold her upright.
Rough hands seized her arms and dragged her up.
Then her body froze as she heard her father’s voice.
“Bring the lass tae me.”
